Raaga The Coffee Lounge – A whiff of hope

Despite being the campus area, have always felt that North Delhi lacks good hangout joints – coffee shops, bars, Hookah joints where you can just relax and spend some quality time with your friends. Thankfully Mocha opened up and brought some welcome relief to the area, however it still seems to be the only place and anyone in that part of Delhi, lands up at Mocha Civil Lines.

Raaga seems to bring in welcome relief, located at a quieter corner of bustling Bungalow road, it is a place that has lot of potential. Have visited them couple of times, and till now have not got much of a reason to complain. In-fact I am quite positive that I am gonna go back there for more often.

Cafe Latte

What is the most important thing in a Coffee Shop? Coffee! And they seem to be doing well on that front. Had tried their Latte (Rs.85) couple of times, and though I am not a connoisseur, however I still liked the brew. My friends who understand coffee much better than me, liked their Cappuccino (Rs.79) and a cold coffee they make from their own roast Raaga Frappe. So yeah, that is a front they seemed to be sorted at.

For me, the second most important thing at a coffee shop is ambiance, and these guys have a very decent and lively setup. I personally am a fan on outdoor seating and as of now they seem to be have decent space to hangout outside. And if my conversation with the very young owner is any indication, they plan to setup their outside seating area in a much better way, hopefully we would be see something in next couple of weeks.

Now coming to the third thing, the food. It is the most important factor in my life, however coffee shop is one of the places where I do not go to eat as I do not expect anything edible from these guys (read ‘Chains’). Most of the times the food you get is like take out of the freezer and microwaved, which is not the kind of food I really appreciate. That said I happened to try 2-3 things at Raaga and till now, they seem to be fairly impressive. Things that we sampled :

Vegetable Lasagna : For Rs.160 bucks, it is one of the better lasagnas available around. Fresh vegetables, lot of cheese and good portion size. No reason to complain here.

Mediterranean Pizza : The cheese, the toppings were perfect, however the base seemed slightly thick. Again at Rs.150-200 did not leave much reason for us to complain, we finished it, we enjoyed it.

Vegetable Burger : This was for Rs.59 bucks and at the price there is not much scope for complaining. However the patty was a bit oily for my taste and reminded me of Gupta Ji’s fried burgers that you get all around the town. Once again I finished it, and if I did that, I really liked it.

Mediterranean Pizza

Veg. Burger

Veg Lasagna

The inside scoop in lasagna.. 😉

The guy serving us was well spoken, experienced and warm. However we were surprised that they did not have Tabasco and Mustard sauces available. Plus with the burger we were served Tomato Ketchup of Del Monte (sachet) but with the pizza it was continental sauce of a brand I did not recognize. I wonder if it was a deliberate combination or just a random oversight.

Its too soon to say anything, they have been out there for couple of months only. Not a place I would specially go to, still the coffee shop I would hangout when I am in that part of town. Plus the rents in that area are a major killer, not sure how they plan to pull in the business and for how long they would be able to sustain such high costs, however I hope they are able to pull it off, because if they do, they would be getting lot of blessings from denizens of North Delhi and their friends.

PS : Its a pure vegetarian place.

Raaga The Coffee Lounge

38, Bungalow Rd, Kamla Nagar, New Delhi, Delhi, India 110007

011 4568 6688

Connect with me on Twitter : @tweet2shashank

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Author: Shashank

CFE – Cheap Food Enthusiast Entrepreneur by birth, hippie by heart he is here just because he loves to eat. This adventurous biker is constantly looking for new avenues to satisfy his insatiable hunger for food & life. Though he loves sugar dense food, there is nothing sugar coated about him- brutally honest with his words, he often ruffles feathers with his stark naked opinions about food, fancy restaurants & orthodox ideas.
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